Japan Earthquake

Japan Earthquake | Page 2431

Police introducing radiation-proof vehicles

Japan's National Police Agency will introduce radiation-proof vehicles as part of stepped-up counter-terrorism measures at nuclear power plants.

The agency says the new vehicles will be installed at 9 police headquarters in the country. The vehicles are shielded with lead, which blocks radiation.

The vehicles will enable police officers to protect themselves from radiation when apprehending terrorists and rescuing the injured in cases of terror attacks or accidents at nuclear plants.

In the wake of the September 11th attacks in the United States in 2001, Japanese police have been guarding some of the country's nuclear plants and related facilities. Armed officers and bullet-proof vehicles are on duty around the clock.

Agency officials say they are stepping up counter-terrorism measures in the belief that the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant has increased the likelihood of nuclear facilities being targeted.

Friday, September 30, 2011 13:04 +0900 (JST)
www3.nhk.or.jp
by Edano 9/30/2011 8:43:03 AM

@Edano OMG hiding behind the terrorism card now I am sickened
by elainekirk 9/30/2011 8:46:18 AM

Japan gov't to lift evacuation advisory for 20-30 km zone

TOKYO, Sept. 30, Kyodo

The Japanese government will lift on Friday its advisory for residents living in areas between 20 and 30 kilometers from the Fukushima Daiichi power plant to evacuate due to the nuclear crisis at the plant, officials said.

The government will formalize the decision at a meeting of a ministerial conference on the nuclear emergency to be held at Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's office Friday evening.

The areas covered by the advisory are the whole area of the town of Hirono and parts of the cities of Minamisoma and Tamura, the town of Naraha and the village of Kawauchi, all in Fukushima Prefecture. english.kyodonews.jp
by Edano 9/30/2011 8:46:40 AM

@Edano I thought twitter was quiet this morning I guess the people have sunk into depression hearing this news, how can they fight against a system that values human life below tepco's survival
by elainekirk 9/30/2011 8:48:24 AM

yes it's frustrating. indeed.
by Edano 9/30/2011 8:49:51 AM

and now .......................... we have a 512 Sv/hr reading in #1 drywell. !!!!!!!! new record !!!!
by Edano 9/30/2011 9:19:19 AM

by Edano via Houseoffoust 9/30/2011 9:22:07 AM

@Edano and they are making people go home while it still isnt stabl;e
by elainekirk 9/30/2011 9:27:14 AM

512 is so way off scale....
by Edano 9/30/2011 9:32:38 AM

@Edano what is that ?
by elainekirk 9/30/2011 9:39:04 AM

September 29, 2011
Japan Atomic Energy Agency
Situation and response of JAEA to the Great East Japan Earthquake
(Outline of activities on March 11-September 28)
www.jaea.go.jp
.
Why do I get the feeling that they are planning to say the emergency is over and the radiation has all miraculously gone away ...
by elainekirk 9/30/2011 9:44:17 AM

Well look at this imports to the EU have only been tested for iodine and cesium docs.google.com
by elainekirk 9/30/2011 10:00:35 AM

Radiation decontamination work carried out for first time at Minamisoma city hall MINAMISOMA, Fukushima -- Radiation decontamination work was carried out at the Minamisoma city hall for the first time on Sept. 30, the same day the central government lifted the "emergency evacuation preparation zone" designation over part of the city.

The city is calling for residents to become involved in decontamination efforts amid the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, while appealing for assistance from the central government, which has been reluctant to provide financial support.

About 50 workers took part in the work on Sept. 30, spending roughly an hour and a half using brushes and high-pressure water cleaners to decontaminate the city hall's parking lot and shrubbery.

The emergency evacuation preparation zone had covered the area of the city located between 20 and 30 kilometers from the damaged nuclear plant.
mdn.mainichi.jp
by luisa 9/30/2011 10:09:42 AM

Tokai village mayor reflects on JCO and Fukushima crises, calls for anti-nuke shift TOKAI, Ibaraki -- Mayor Tatsuya Murakami criticized the government sharply at a morning assembly opened on Sept. 30, twelve years to the day after a criticality accident at a nuclear production and processing company here that led to the deaths of two company employees and exposed 666 people to radiation.

In front of the approximately 100 village officials who gathered, Murakami both criticized the central government for its handling of nuclear power and showed his anti-nuclear position.

"A government that is both incompetent and unfeeling toward mankind is not qualified to have nuclear power plants," he said.

"Just as with the incident at (nuclear processing plant) JCO Co., the government and Tokyo Electric Power Co's handling (of the latest nuclear crisis at TEPCO's Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant) has been sorely lacking," Murakami said. Pointing to the over 1 million people living within a 30-kilometer radius of the Japan Atomic Power Company's Tokai No. 2 Nuclear Power Plant, he asked, "Is it really OK to have a nuclear power plant in this area?"

Operations at the Tokai No. 2 Nuclear Power Plant are currently stopped for a routine checkup, and because of problems found with the turbines, it is unclear when the plant will be up and running again. Amid such circumstances, Murakami emphasized his intention to place weight on the will of the people, saying: "There are many residents who truly fear a nuclear crisis, which allows for no ambiguous compromises." www.scribblelive.com
by luisa 9/30/2011 10:10:39 AM

@luisa I wonder if once the citizens have cleaned the homes in which they are forced to live if compensation claims at a later date will be nullified by them voluntarily handling etc contaminated maerials
by elainekirk 9/30/2011 10:13:38 AM

@elainekirk oh what a terrible, but likely scenario. I've barely been able to think past the horror of all these good, well meaning folks 'cleaning up' (そうじする)　when what they're 'cleaning up' is radioactive material. After it's been hosed off surfaces, where do they think it's going?
by luisa 9/30/2011 10:21:52 AM

@luisa I am sickened that governments around the wourld are ignoring the humanitarian aspect in favour of the nuke industry and applaud those few countries who have stood up and said no to nukes
by elainekirk 9/30/2011 10:26:19 AM

Another aftershock, further north, not long ago 18:50 JST 30 Sep 2011 39.1N 142.1E 50 km 3.7 Iwate-ken Oki www.jma.go.jp
by luisa 9/30/2011 10:26:57 AM

@luisa have you seen edano's posts further down re #1
by elainekirk 9/30/2011 10:33:29 AM

@elainekirk Yes, I have - very disturbing.
by luisa 9/30/2011 10:42:19 AM

This Wall Street Journal article includes a very graphic map which identifies which towns did and didn't hand out potassium iodine tablets Japan Officials Failed to Hand Out Radiation Pills in Quake's Aftermath online.wsj.com
by luisa 9/30/2011 10:46:12 AM

@luisa thanks for that link
by elainekirk 9/30/2011 11:05:30 AM

scram at browns ferry , worth keeping a note of these? www.nrc.gov
by elainekirk 9/30/2011 11:12:10 AM

plutonium 45km from plant www3.nhk.or.jp
by elainekirk 9/30/2011 11:22:17 AM

@elainekirk Plutonium-238 & 239, 240. The measurements of 82 and 5 bequerals are from June - July. Why are they only announced now? Skf has more ex-skf.blogspot.com He says the readings are from Iitate-mura where some time ago he reported neptunium-239, so says plutonium isn't that surprising.
by luisa 9/30/2011 11:40:44 AM

It's official. Japan gov't lifts evacuation advisory for 20-30 km zone The Japanese government on Friday lifted its advisory for residents living in areas between 20 and 30 kilometers from the Fukushima Daiichi power plant to evacuate due to the nuclear crisis at the plant, officials said.

''This is major progress following the nuclear accident, and we will support the people's steady and safe return,'' nuclear disaster minister Goshi Hosono said in announcing the decision reached at a government meeting to discuss measures to deal with the world's worst nuclear accident in 25 years.

Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Yukio Edano, who held a joint press conference with Hosono, said the government will work hard to decontaminate the radiation-polluted land, given concerns among evacuees over radiation contamination. english.kyodonews.jp
by luisa 9/30/2011 11:44:25 AM

Morning! (afternoon-evening)
by lillymunster 9/30/2011 11:54:23 AM

An early goodnight!
by luisa 9/30/2011 11:56:20 AM

@luisa you have been busy this morning! Thanks for digging all of this up, it will make getting posts together much easier.
by lillymunster 9/30/2011 11:56:39 AM

@luisa g'night sleep well
by elainekirk 9/30/2011 11:59:10 AM

@lillymunster go look Edano's quake graphs re #1
by elainekirk 9/30/2011 11:59:52 AM

@elainekirk Oh I just did. Wow. I was asking about the proper terminology rather than this "cold shutdown" nonsense the media is putting out. I can put the readings with that. The lie that they have control drives me crazy.
by lillymunster 9/30/2011 12:05:39 PM

@lillymunster great sleuthing
by elainekirk 9/30/2011 12:16:29 PM

@elainekirk Following all these minute details of the reactors has paid off many times. :-)
by lillymunster 9/30/2011 12:20:31 PM

@lillymunster it certainly has :)
by elainekirk 9/30/2011 12:25:59 PM

Does anyone know where this source file with the cesium-soil map seen here search.japantimes.co.jp is located? I know I've seen it in a pdf file but I can't find it in the Mext data radioactivity.mext.go.jp
by Ian 9/30/2011 12:26:14 PM

... the source file with ...
by Ian 9/30/2011 12:27:00 PM

www.japantimes.co.jp It's just not were it should be radioactivity.mext.go.jp And it uses a logical color-coding scheme, versus Mext's other maps like radioactivity.mext.go.jp
by Ian via Japantimes.co.jp 9/30/2011 12:40:28 PM

@Ian just looking for it and found this released today will keep looking for your map but this is water www.pref.ibaraki.jp
by elainekirk 9/30/2011 12:41:35 PM

@Ian I posted something to the group website in the last day or two that had details on the contamination in Gunma. It cites the agency collecting the data from the hellicopter survey. I don't think it was MEXT,
by lillymunster 9/30/2011 12:43:37 PM

@elainekirk, thanks!
A curious feature is if you overlay this map onto a Google map, all the cities line up as expected, except Fukushima city has been misplaced about 10 km to the west, pulling it to less radioactive spot. Because the Google map corresponds to satellite imagery, it's right. And so it's curious that all the cities on the cesium map are right, except Fukushima city.
by Ian 9/30/2011 12:44:59 PM

@lillymunster, they attribute this map to "science ministry and Ibaraki Prefectural Government."
by Ian 9/30/2011 12:50:55 PM

Fascinating comparison of Chernobyl to Fukushima fallout ajw.asahi.com Click on maps to get a larger display where the two images can be toggled. Fukushima land contamination is tiny by contrast. And here's an even larger map of Chernobyl fall that shows how much the first comparison understates Chernobyl's spread : allegedlyapparent.wordpress.com One of my pet peeves is the common demand that Fukushima is "orders of magnitude worse than Chernobyl." It seems to come from those prone to exaggeration.
by Ian 9/30/2011 12:57:30 PM